


Chris and Derek's Epic Love Story

by tuesdaymidnight



Series: Domestic!Verse [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Antiquing, Beard Porn, Clothes Sharing, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Manpain, Scent Marking, Schmoop, Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 02:33:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1711781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuesdaymidnight/pseuds/tuesdaymidnight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Derek and Chris have both lost everything. After the nogitsune, they start working together to help protect Beacon Hills, and a friendship starts to develop between them. That friendship turns into flirting and eventually more, proving to them both that love can bloom out of ashes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

  * For [sapphirescribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sapphirescribe/gifts), [donnersun](https://archiveofourown.org/users/donnersun/gifts), [OnTheTurningAway](https://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheTurningAway/gifts).



> This starts out kind of like hurt/comfort, but it gets very schmoopy and over the top, and I don't even care because CHRIS AND DEREK LOVE EACH OTHER AND THEIR LOVE IS EPIC. They make my cold, dead heart feel things. THINGS. And I have the emotional range of a teaspoon.
> 
> I call this Domestic!Verse. The main story arc will be the story of how they got together and started building a life together. It will be posted in four parts (in addition to the prologue). Then there will the outtakes and smuttakes and not!fic where they argue about whether or not you should add nutmeg to bechamel sauce and American Craftsman vs. American Queen Anne. What.
> 
> Thank you so very much to [OnTheTurningAway](http://archiveofourown.org/users/OnTheTurningAway) for being the bestest beta.

_Prologue_

Respect. Trust. Love.

It took them years to get to this point. Where Chris could get out of bed in the morning and Derek wouldn't awake with a start, ready to fight and defend. Where Derek would move into the warm space Chris left behind and burrow his face into Chris' pillow, because even though he never needed to say it out loud, Chris' scent comforted him. Where Chris could brew a pot of coffee and read the paper while Derek slept through the aroma and the rustling, because he was safe and Chris was stable and neither of them needed to be on edge.

After an epic's worth of tragedy and violence and loss, they wore their scars openly. But those marks, on their bodies and on their hearts, had faded over time, and things were finally good.

Eventually, roused by the smell of bacon cooking, Derek would pad downstairs, barefoot and rumpled, having pulled on sleep pants. He would come up behind Chris, rest his hands on Chris' hips, and plant a kiss on the spot where neck meets shoulder. And Chris would lean back a little into Derek's chest and relax into the embrace. He would never fail to notice how perfectly they fit together.

He didn't need to say it. Derek would move to wrap his arms across Chris' waist and push into his space. He would squeeze a little tighter than usual, hold on a little longer, and Chris would know Derek felt it too, that he appreciated how far they had come.

“Can you get out the syrup so I can heat it up?”

“Mmmhmm,” Derek would murmur into Chris' neck, inhaling the scent that had become his anchor.

Chris would flip the pancakes, and Derek would pull the bottle shaped like a maple leaf out of the cabinet that reminded them both it had been far too long since they were back in Vermont. They would eat breakfast in a silence so comfortable, they almost hated to break it. But then Chris' fingers would twitch toward the newspaper again. He would get out the crossword puzzle, and Derek would lean into his space and help him fill in the spaces.

Chris would never stop being surprised that Derek knew random pieces of information about opera and the history of the papacy, and Derek would smile when they got a foreign clue and would make Chris speak to him in French or Italian. Derek still had the advantage, though, by far. One morning Chris caught him doing  _The New York Times_ Saturday puzzle in pen.

It took years for them to even begin to heal, to discover that the holes that had been left behind in the wake of their tragic lives were capable of being filled, that they weren't too broken to be fixed. It was a process wrought with guilt and fear, but also surprise and hope.

The important thing was that they got there in the end.


	2. The Beginning

It started with a recon mission.

They tracked a djinn to San Francisco, but they needed a cover.

Derek could admit that he wasn't exactly subtle. To anyone familiar with the supernatural, he screamed “werewolf”—he could admit it—and if anyone around the djinn so much as thought “werewolf,” they were in danger of losing the trail for good. Djinn could go into hiding for years, even though they preferred to have a regular source of blood.

Derek reluctantly went to Lydia for help in shedding his werewolf image, and she dressed both of them up in jeans that were way too skinny and boots that were totally impractical. Derek was wearing _color_ , although Chris was wearing the red pants Lydia picked out, because Derek flat out refused to wear them. She packed them a change of clothes that Derek didn't even dare to look at and then sent them on their way.

The next thing Derek knew, they were in San Francisco, sitting on the patio of a peri peri chicken place with their heads together, pretending they were on a date.

If they didn't notice when the djinn slipped away because they got caught up in a conversation about Scoville units and whether or not werewolves had a higher tolerance for spicy foods, well, no one else needed to know.

They eventually tracked the djinn down to Fisherman's Wharf, which made it impossible to kill without drawing some notice. They assumed he was using Alcatraz to drain his victims—it was the perfect place, remote enough with a lot of places to hide. Getting onto Alcatraz island made things a lot more difficult. The djinn was far more likely to come out in the evening hours near dusk, so they decided to regroup and make a plan to take the last tour boat over the next day. Neither of them minded staying in San Francisco for an extra day. It turned out they both had an interest in architecture, so they took the morning off to go on a walking tour of the Victorian homes in the city.

After sitting outside for a leisurely lunch, during which no less than three men slipped Derek their number, they ducked into a gallery on the way back to their hotel because some of the metal work caught Chris' eye. Derek humored him for the first few pieces, but they all looked so phallic he started snickering under his breath, and he just couldn't help but tease Chris about it. Eventually Chris finally had to admit a lot of the artwork was vaguely penile.

“Vaguely penile?” Derek said. “These are dicks.”

“You see what you want to see, Derek,” Chris said.

Derek sputtered as Chris put his hand on his shoulder. He almost dropped their cover to call Chris out for being a horrible, fucking tease, because he had been sporting half a chub for nearly the whole day and he was mostly convinced Chris was doing it on purpose. But he thought better of it. If Chris were doing it on purpose, then two could play at this game. So he wrapped his arm around Chris' waist and suggested loudly that Chris should purchase the piece and put it in the bedroom.

“You two are adorable,” the gallery attendant said to them.

“What?” Derek tensed.

“Thanks,” Chris smiled at the woman and slid his hand into Derek's. “Come on, babe. We're going to be late for our reservation.”

Derek nearly tripped over his feet on the way out.

“Babe?” he questioned.

“I'm out with a hot guy 15 years my junior. What else would I call him?”

Chris secretly liked making Derek's face go bright red.

“It's almost sunset. Let's just catch this thing,” Derek said through gritted teeth.

Nothing happened that weekend while they were in San Francisco except a whole lot of sexual frustration.

They did capture the djinn, sure. They separated themselves from the tour group and made their way through Alcatraz to the djinn's lair. Derek held it down while Chris stabbed it through the heart with a silver knife dipped in lamb's blood. But they slept in separate beds in the hotel, on their sides facing opposite walls of the room. Derek studiously pretended he wasn't distracted by how good Chris looked in the ridiculous red pants. And Chris pretended he didn't notice that Derek was distracted.

But he did notice. He noticed everything about Derek. At first it had been mostly clinical. Derek was a werewolf, and Chris was a hunter; studying werewolves was as intuitive to Chris as breathing. But at some point amidst the chaotic years of the kanima and the alpha pack and the oni, he gave in to the urge that had been crawling under his skin since Derek Hale had returned to Beacon Hills. He let himself look—really look. And then he couldn't stop looking. He couldn't ignore the sheer physical presence of Derek. He also couldn't ignore the wall of muscles, the perfect curve of Derek's ass, and the cut of his jawline.

Derek made it so spectacularly easy, because he had no idea how much sexuality he oozed. He knew he looked intimidating, and used that to his advantage, but he was utterly clueless about how truly devastating he could be if he wanted.

How he managed to maintain even the slightest bit of innocence was baffling to Chris, but it made him, well, it made him _like_ Derek, even when he still saw him as a potential enemy, a thing he might one day have to shoot through the heart. Anyway, it didn't surprise him when one day he realized that those instinctive feelings of wariness had disappeared and were replaced with a fondness, a respect even, for the werewolf who had become his partner in protecting Beacon Hills from a supernatural menagerie.

Chris drove them back from San Francisco. He was supposed to take Derek back to his loft. But when he got near Beacon Hills, he turned off into the preserve and killed the engine.

“What's going on?” Derek asked.

Chris gripped the steering wheel and gave an exasperated noise.

“Are you ever going to make a move?”

“Am I ever—what? What are you talking about?”

“I've been watching you pussyfoot around this for almost a year. So I'm going to make it easy for you. I _want_ you, Derek. So if you want me, come and get me.”

Chris had no chance of giving Derek a good chase on foot, but he did have the element of surprise. He bolted out of the car and took off running. It took Derek about 15 seconds of sitting completely flabbergasted before his dick told his brain to stop thinking.

He jumped out of the car, scented the air, and took off after Chris.

It wasn't a long pursuit, but that wasn't Chris' intent. Their teasing game of cat and mouse had gone on long enough.

Chris was perfectly happy to be prey when Derek pushed him up against a tree and growled into his throat. Chris brought his hands to Derek's tight ass and pulled him forward. There was more gnashing of teeth than kissing; there was tearing of the clothes Lydia had forced them into. Derek barely had control over his claws and he scrambled to get his hand around Chris' cock.

“Fuck, Derek,” Chris groaned. “Took you fucking long enough.”

Derek responded by scraping his teeth across Chris' throat before bringing up his free hand to grip the back of Chris' neck.

“I didn't know it was an option,” Derek responded, before kissing Chris again sloppily, their tongues pushing back and forth, both wanting to give and neither wanting to take.

Chris pulled back with a gasping breath. “A year. I thought you were going to make a move a year ago.”

 

* * * * *

 

It had happened gradually, which was probably for the better.

There had been moments between them, more than a few moments. There had. Chris hadn't been making it up. The way Derek looked at Chris, it wasn't the way you looked at a casual acquaintance or a friend or some guy you had been forced to track down dangerous supernatural creatures with.

At first, Chris thought that Derek thought it was too soon after Allison, and he had been politely letting him grieve. Not long after Allison's death, Derek would show up at Chris' apartment on a regular basis, usually bringing takeout. That Derek knew what he would order at nearly every takeout place within a ten block radius, or could very accurately guess what Chris would order, was a detail not lost on Chris.

They _had_  spent a lot of time together dealing with the oni, but meals were always rushed, whatever was close by. Chris never paid much attention to what Derek ordered. He seemed to just point to the first thing on the menu, like he was eating only to survive and not because he would actually enjoy it.

One evening Derek had brought Thai and a “lead” on Peter's latest attempt to, well, do whatever it was Peter was doing this week. They kept tabs on him, mostly for Malia's sake, but they didn't take him too seriously. He seemed to pursue a new, hare-brained way to become an alpha every other week. Most of them were harmless, but sometimes there was talk of sacrifice.

When Chris opened the takeout container and saw chicken and mixed vegetables, he passed it over to Derek.

“This must be yours.”

“No, it's yours. I ordered it without peppers.”

Derek knew Chris was allergic to red bell peppers. He also knew he loved red curry. There was knowledge in the gesture, a lesson learned from Derek's paranoid over-observance, but there was also a degree of care. It threw Chris off kilter. He was sure Derek didn't miss the way his heart sped up, but Derek didn't say a word about it and the moment passed.

Chris knew what Derek was doing with the regular dinner visits, or at least he thought he did, so that night he finally confronted him.

“You don't have to check on me you know.”

Derek stared back blankly.

“I don't know if you and Stilinski and Melissa and Isaac have a rotating schedule.”

A flash of hurt crossed Derek's face, but his careful mask returned quickly. “You think I feel obligated.”

“No. I—that's not it. I'm _fine_ , Derek.”

“So you don't like my company then?”

“That's really not what I meant. You just don't _have_ —”

“And if I want to?” Derek interrupted.

Chris didn't have a good response to that, so he got up from his chair and started pacing. Derek's eyes were on him as he walked across the living room and stopped in front of the window. He was saved from having to come up with a response to Derek's absurd question when Derek interrupted his thoughts with another.

“You're still hunting?”

Chris turned and followed Derek's gaze. He had left his favorite rifle, albeit unloaded, on the table under the window.

“Yeah.”

“And what are you hunting with that?”

Chris knew what Derek was getting at. Peter was up to something, but it was always for greed with Peter, not destruction. Peter would bend the rules and he had probably insulted every werewolf pack from Beacon Hills to Boston, but even he didn't break the hunter's code that Chris still found ingrained in his own actions.

“Totally within the rules of the state of California's Department of Fish and Game.”

“You hunt for sport?”

“Gerard used to send me out in the woods and tell me not to come back without a buck, or pronghorn, or an elk, whatever he was in the mood for really.”

“And now you do it for _fun_?”

It didn't make sense to Chris either. But there was something about being out alone in the woods, tracking through the uninhabited brush, enticing a powerful animal to him, and making the shot, that was deeply satisfying. There was a skill to it and an exercise in patience that calmed Chris and cleared his head like nothing else did.

But that wasn't the answer Derek was looking for. And Chris knew it.

“I have nothing left, Derek. It was impressed on me from a young age that death was always around the corner. You saw what happened when Gerard decided to fight against that inevitability.”

“That's how you grew up?”

“It's a violent profession.”

“Well, I didn't grow up that way. I was a normal kid. A normal werewolf kid, yeah, but I guess it's all relative. I went to school. I played sports. I had friends. I had a big family, and I was taught to respect our traditions. But there was a lot of love there, too.”

“Derek—”

“No. I know we're different. I know this is normal for you. But it wasn't always normal for me. Until Paige, death and violence and loss weren't a part of my life. I'm just saying. It's okay to be hurt by it. It's okay to not be fine.”

“Why do you care?” Chris said it mostly to himself.

“Fuck if I know,” Derek said. “But I do. I like you, Argent. I like coming over here. So deal with it.”

Chris didn't have a good response to that.

So Derek kept coming over, and Chris didn't question it again.

Derek was actually good company. Chris was surprised by it, given their age difference, but Derek was an old soul. Derek wasn't interested in technology or video games. He didn't check his phone every 20 seconds the way everyone under the age of 30 seemed to do. Chris commented on it once and Derek laughed.

“McCall threatened to replace my flip phone with a smart phone the other day.”

Chris had the newest model of iPhone, but he found Derek's technophobia remarkably endearing.

Derek grew up playing outside, running around the preserve, and playing sports with his family. He liked working on cars and building things with his bare hands. One evening Chris canceled on dinner plans because of a leaking water heater, and Derek showed up at his house with a tool box. In an hour, they were able to fix the water heater before the repairman had even shown up.

They just worked well together. Their senses of humor both settled somewhere between dark and sarcastic. They spent far too much time complaining about Deaton's cryptic “advice.”

The more time they spent together, the more Chris was able to convince himself that Derek shared in the overwhelming attraction he felt. There were times when Chris would catch Derek's eye and there was desire written so clearly on Derek's face, Chris could almost taste it. Chris could make Derek blush with an offhand comment about sex, and it wasn't because Derek was prudish. The very same comment from anyone else would have no effect. There were casual touches that lingered too long—a hand on the shoulder or their legs brushing against each other's under the table.

Chris knew he wanted Derek, and he was almost positive Derek wanted him. But he needed Derek to be the one to make the move. Because he was younger, because of his past, because of what Kate had done to him, Chris couldn't let Derek misinterpret his interest as anything other than genuine.

It _was_  genuine, and it ran so much deeper than attraction.

But then nothing happened except pining looks and memorized dinner orders. And the occasional hunting gig together, because the majority of people in Beacon Hills who knew about the seedy supernatural underbelly were mostly still in high school.

 

* * * * *

 

And then San Francisco happened. And Chris had finally had enough—enough flirting and teasing and enough of the way Derek would look at him like he really saw him and who he was and wanted in. Even Lydia seemed to know what was going on. There was no doubt about the way she had her hand in orchestrating their excursion to San Francisco and the way she “disguised” them. That he was being set up by a senior in high school, genius though she may be, was a little bit disconcerting. Then again, he hadn't been able to make the move himself and ask Derek if he was interested.

There were moments in San Francisco when Chris could tell Derek wasn't just playing the part of the boyfriend. It was the way their hands would drift together while they were walking and the way Derek focused on no one but Chris, even in a city with hundreds of beautiful young men eying him up and down. Beacon Hills could be stifling in some ways, partly because of the lies they had to tell and the facades they had to keep up to hide the creatures they hunted, but also because it was a small city—and everyone knew Derek Hale and the tragedy his family suffered.

But in San Francisco Derek sometimes seemed so at ease at Chris' side that Chris couldn't help but finally take the last step and acknowledge the current that ran between them.

And so they got there in the end. Derek had Chris pinned up against a tree and was kissing him so thoroughly, Chris felt breathless and light-headed.

Derek was all heat. His warmth crowded into Chris' space, and Chris was grateful for the crisp evening breeze of early spring. Without the cooling chill, he thought he might burn up. He had waited so long, not just for Derek, but for the intensity, the feeling of being wanted, the connection to another person that was so strong Chris couldn't make sense of himself when they were apart. So maybe he _had_  been waiting for Derek.

“Derek,” Chris murmured, overwhelmed, plunging his fingers into Derek's hair and keeping his head in place for another bruising kiss. Chris' whole body was alive with want; it was buzzing underneath his skin, but he could feel Derek holding back.

Chris felt ridiculous bringing a leg up to pull Derek closer, but if that was how he could get Derek even further into his space, then he would do it. He wanted to close every inch of air between them and give the sexual tension that had been building up between them for over a year its kill shot.

“We should have been doing this months ago,” Chris groaned as he moved his lips, his teeth, and his tongue to Derek's neck. Derek's hissed as Chris searched the stubbled skin for the tender spot behind Derek's ear that made him go boneless for a moment as he melted against Chris. It made Chris wonder when was the last time—if there ever was one—someone took their time with Derek, getting to know his body and the way he responded, finding all the places that made Derek jump.

Whatever Derek's reply, it was cut off as Chris' impatience got the better of him and he finally got Derek's jeans open and slid his hand inside. He pushed Derek's jeans down and wrapped a hand around Derek's dick. Chris had forgotten what it felt like to hold another man's cock in his hand—to feel its weight throbbing in his hand and to get the angle and pressure of the stroke right. He went slow at first, experimenting a little, adjusting to Derek's foreskin, stroking upward, bringing it up over the head until Derek was groaning.

Chris was already so light-headed and felt so good finally being able to touch Derek, that he barely noticed Derek was pawing at his own jeans. Their arms tangled up in each other's until Derek huffed and grabbed Chris' wrists and forced him to stop jacking him off.

Chris smirked at Derek. Every sideways glance, every time they were in each other's space and Chris was forced to wonder if it was intentional or Derek's social awkwardness, every time Chris thought that maybe there was something between them—all his doubt was vaporizing into confirmation. Derek wanted him.

He let Derek hold his wrists up against the tree in one of his strong hands. Derek nosed at Chris' neck, sucking at his Adam's apple and then marking his way up the other side. With his free hand, he finished unbuckling Chris' belt and unzipping Chris' jeans.

“You're going to have to let my hands go.”

Derek growled and relented, but he was so quick shoving Chris' jeans and boxers down, Chris didn't have time to do anything before Derek was crowding back in his space, reaching a hand between them to start stroking Chris.

He thunked his head back on the tree and reveled in it for a minute. It had been so damn long since he had felt someone else's touch. He knew eventually it would happen—that he would go to some nearby town, find the gay-friendly bar, and sit and wait until he found another divorcee who was testing the waters. Or maybe he would get lucky and find a guy who liked older men. He would have settled for a one night stand, just to take the edge off, to remember what it was like to touch and be touched by another man. So for it to be Derek, who was not only the hottest man Chris has ever seen, but the person he felt most connected to in the world, made him feel like his entire body could go up in a spark of flames.

He reached out for Derek so he could give back even a tiny sense of what he was feeling, but Derek batted his hand away. Derek ran his teeth against Chris' throat as he stroked steadily and firmly. Chris could feel Derek hard against his thigh.

“Derek,” Chris managed to get out. “Derek, will you just—”

Derek cut him off with a kiss; Chris felt Derek smiling against his lips before he pulled away.

“I was too close,” Derek confessed.

If Derek was expecting Chris to tease him for it, he had no idea how on edge he was himself.

“You don't know how long I've—it's been—what I'm trying to say is I'm close, too. Jesus, your hand.”

Derek replied with another searing kiss, and then Derek shifted and took them both in his hand. It was a whole different sensation. It felt so good, Chris couldn't stop himself from jerking his hips, working himself against Derek's cock.

It took a bit of repositioning to get the angle right. There was no reason for them to be in a rush, but they were both like starving men, trying to devour each other with their hands and their lips. The denial that had taken them so long to get to this point was falling away.

Chris hadn't felt so charged in recent memory—his heart was beating wildly, so close already to the edge of orgasm. With Derek's hand stroking his cock, in control, the only thing Chris could do was hold on. He grabbed Derek's hair in one hand and tugged forward. Derek's tongue pushed into his mouth, and Chris sucked, trying to drag Derek in. Then Derek pulled back, taking Chris' lower lip between his teeth, and that was it. It was that little sensation of pain that got him.

It hit him in a rush, and he came hard, all over Derek's hand and his cock, pulsing like it would never stop. Derek continued stroking Chris through it, either drawing out Chris' orgasm or chasing his own.

“Derek,” Chris said hoarsely.

“Chris,” Derek choked out in response.

Chris felt it as Derek came. His own dick was still sensitive as Derek's pulsed next to his, adding to the mess. He shivered as Derek finished, still holding both of their cocks in his hand as he leaned forward onto Chris' shoulder. Chris brought his hand up to the back of Derek's neck. They stood there like that for a few minutes, letting their heartbeats slow back down.

There was come on both their shirts, on their dicks, on Derek's hand, but Chris didn't care. Derek was nearly collapsed against him, but Chris held his now familiar weight and that was all that mattered. They had fought alongside each other and plotted together and mourned the losses together. They had each other's back, and now they shared this too.

They walked the short way back to Chris' car in silence. They didn't make any future plans or talk about what they had done, which was more Derek's doing than Chris', but Chris respected the silence. When Chris got to Derek's loft, Derek still hadn't said anything, even when Chris said, “Have a good night, Derek,” to him.

Derek was clearly freaked out about what he had done and probably whom he had done it with. Chris didn't believe for a second it had been Derek's first time with a man, so it had to be Chris in particular that was causing the mental turmoil.

As much as he had wanted it, fantasized about it even, as soon as he got back to his apartment after dropping Derek off, Chris had a few moments of panic, too. Although he was freaked out for different reasons entirely. It was the first time he had been with anyone since Victoria, and it had been a long time before Victoria's death that their marriage had been physical. He could barely remember the point where his count of sexless months turned into sexless years.

Chris had always been gay. Ever since he was a boy, he just knew.

One of Gerard's many lessons had been that Chris' sexual orientation didn't matter. The Argent family was led by women, and Chris would marry one whether he was sexually attracted to her or not. He did his duty. At age 20, he was too weak to protest the Argent family way, but his marriage had essentially been arranged. Over time, Chris grew to love Victoria as a friend. He respected her. He got Allison out of the arrangement, and he wouldn't trade or take back the 17 years he got with Allison for anything in the world.

Allison's death was a mark on his heart that would never heal, that he would carry around with him every day of his life, but Victoria's death haunted him like a ghost. He never told her outright that he was gay, but he assumed she knew without his confession. Of course, the cost of her keeping that secret was that he would look the other way when she would find company elsewhere, with both men and women. He put his foot down when she showed interest in hunters he worked with closely. The knowledge that other people had slept with his wife didn't bother him—it relieved him of something he viewed as a chore—but the one time it was someone too close, that man thought he had some type of power over Chris because of it. It had happened exactly once. The knife scar on Chris' back was the permanent reminder. Victoria had been at his side, reminding the hunter that she was no one's property. Chris had almost left her after that, not because of what she had done, but because he saw that her judgment could be compromised. But he was a coward, afraid of his father until the end.

Giving into the attraction he had for Derek was a release in so many ways. He was finally letting the illusion of his marriage and of his sexuality go. Even though he had never considered himself straight, it was how the rest of the world saw him. It was how the hunting community saw him. He was faithful to his wife for their 18 years of marriage, and had only been with a handful of young men when he was a teenager.

But he was reawakening. He was allowing himself to feel another man's body pressed up against his, feel another man's cock, allowing another man to not only touch him, but to see Chris' vulnerability. What he and Derek had was more than a hand job in the woods after a weekend of play-acting a relationship. It was bigger than that, deeper, right down to Chris' soul.

It was something he thought he would be denied forever.

And he hoped that Derek could see, too, how good they could be together.

 

* * * * *

 

For Derek, it started with the nogitsune. Mostly.

Once he accepted that maybe they actually had a common goal, working with Chris had been, well, good. Chris was competent. He had faced the nogitsune and the oni before, and he was a strategist. He didn't go in without considering the consequences like an impatient teenager. He was straightforward, logical, thoughtful even.

The knowledge and experience he'd had was something Derek could almost admit to admiring. Up until the fire, Derek hadn't needed to worry about survival or all the other creatures of the night and the moon. He had a pack. He had a family. His mom, his dad, even Deaton, he knew would protect him if anything bad should happen. But his idea of bad things that could happen were failing a test or having a girl dump him. Everything changed with Paige.

After that Derek started to look at the world differently. It was a dark place, a dangerous place, a deadly place, and he was recklessly drawn to the darkness.

Derek had gotten better over the years. It had started when he and Laura were forced into adulthood when they were both too young for it. When you had to take care of yourself, you couldn't wallow too much in self-pity. But then returning to Beacon Hills, he had been forced to confront all of the grief and the loss and the pain that had hardened him. But Chris still had the upper hand. Derek spent years of his life happily ignorant of the monsters of the world—human and otherwise. Chris had always been a hunter—raised to look at the world in terms of kill or be killed.

There was a hardness to Chris that drew Derek in without him even noticing until that night. Derek remembered the way Chris' back felt pressed up against his as they sat in adjacent cells in Beacon Hills County Jail. It was miserable and annoying being handcuffed in a tiny cell, especially because Derek could break out so easily if he blew his cover. But the body heat radiating off Chris' back seeped into Derek, and he let himself feel something he hadn't felt in a very long time.

Jennifer had been a distraction, a poor one.

It was her power that drew him toward her. It was false desire, and he beat himself up for months afterward that he didn't realize he was under the influence of the power she was drawing from her ritualistic kills. Cora had tried to comfort him, and he owed her a lot. When they took off for South America, he was in that same bad place he had been in after the fire, and she wouldn't take his shit any more than Laura did.

He spent that summer remembering what it was like to have a real pack and to be around other werewolves without the fear of being hunted. He ran, he played, he barely transformed out of his beta form, and it was good. But it wasn't home.

When he came back to Beacon Hills after leaving Cora there, everything was different. Scott was coming into his true alpha nature, Peter had a new obsession, and Chris, well, Chris was suddenly there.

Derek had never given much thought to his sexuality. It probably had something to do with being a werewolf. He didn't like to think it was the animal nature inside him, but if he was attracted to someone, it didn't matter to him if they were male or female. He just trusted that feeling of want in the pit of his stomach. He tended to go for women, but the first time he realized he was attracted to a guy, another born werewolf from a pack he and Laura were friendly with in New York, it didn't cause any sort of massive existential crisis.

Laura had just said, “You like Jake?”

“Yeah, I think I do.”

“If you want to fuck him, just let me know and I'll clear out for the night.”

“So, it's okay with you that I—”

“That you like guys? Of course, Derek.”

“I—really?”

“Who do you think I am, Derek? Of course it's okay. You'd be okay if I brought home a girl.”

“No, I mean, of course I'd be okay with it. I just, you don't seem surprised.”

“Oh, well, no. I mean, we're all kind of bisexual. Plus, you have the biggest crush on Jason Statham.”

“What? I do not!” Derek tried to insist, but he was blushing and his heart was picking up. He shouldn't have bothered trying to deny it, but he didn't want Laura to tease him about it. Of course, she still did at every opportunity. It was her job as the older sibling and the alpha. Derek put a _Transporter_ poster up in his bedroom anyway. Because Jason Statham was hot, and it was a good movie.

His attraction to Chris wasn't surprising. Derek would have been lying if he said he hadn't noticed Chris from their very first encounter, even if Chris was taking out misplaced aggression on his Camaro. Derek hated himself a little that while Chris did it, he was checking him out. But it was just attraction on a very base level. It wasn't something Derek thought about.

But then they spent the night together in a jail cell, and he and Chris started working together more. They worked well together, and Derek started to enjoy Chris' company. Their conversations started to go beyond strictly business. And then when Chris told him he no longer saw Derek as an enemy, there was something in the way Chris said it that sparked Derek into entertaining more than just the fleeting sexual thought when he was jerking off, not that he had a lot of time to himself to jerk off given all the shit that happened in Beacon Hills.

Then he did what he always did when he liked someone, and he started pining. Sometimes he found excuses to go talk to Chris. It was kind of pathetic—maybe _really_ pathetic—but Chris was mostly unreadable, hardened from years of hunting and being trained by his psychopathic father. Derek couldn't put himself out there to ask, so he observed and took every smile and every time Chris' hand would rest on his shoulder or when their feet would tangle together underneath a table and neither of them would be in a rush to move.

The hand job in the woods and Chris' declaration of want was a huge neon sign that said, “Chris wants you and he's waiting for you to make the next move.” Had Chris not put himself out there, Derek probably never would have, or it would have taken a lot of tentative steps and awkward tries.

But it had been a long time coming, Derek knew. The problem was that Derek didn't know if it was just sex Chris wanted. Even though sex was absolutely the safest option, Derek didn't think _he_  would be okay with just sex. It took him three strikes to learn it, but Derek was protective over his heart. He liked Chris, and it was terrifying.

Somewhere along the way Chris had become a friend—a good friend, maybe his best friend—and to lose that was a lot to face. He had resigned himself to never attempting a relationship again. Casual sex, sure, but he was all but convinced he would never let anyone get that close to him again. But then Chris had to go along and be there and be trustworthy and witty and, well, hot. There was no one he wanted more.

For a solid week, he wrestled with the idea that maybe he could fuck Chris and still keep Chris' friendship. Maybe he could keep his feelings in check. In a few moments of weakness he entertained the off chance that maybe Chris wanted more too.

Whatever was going to happen, he knew it was up to him to take the next leap.

Ultimately, it was the way the full moon made him horny that sparked him into action.

It was the weekend after they got back from San Francisco, and it was mostly instinct that carried him to Chris' apartment. Well, and he missed Chris. He hadn't gone a week without seeing Chris in that long since he had gone down to visit Cora over Christmas. Not talking about how terrible the Kings were this season, not trading horror stories of monsters from the bestiary they had encountered, not teasing Chris about needing glasses as he balanced his accounts with his reading glasses perched on his nose, not admiring Chris' ass when he bent over to rummage in the freezer for ice cream after Derek asked for Rocky Road—Derek knew he didn't want to be without that. He told himself he could learn to keep his feelings for Chris in check if it meant he could keep Chris in his life.

It went against the promise he made to himself to live honestly, but somewhere along the way, he reached the point where he couldn't live without Chris.

Chris seemed surprised to see Derek that night, either because he thought Derek was a coward or because he knew Derek liked to spend full moons alone in the woods, but his temporary surprise gave way to a smile that Derek quickly kissed away.

And Chris kissed back. He kissed back thoroughly and roughly, bringing his hands up underneath Derek's t-shirt to dig his nails into Derek's back.

The human part of Derek told him that they needed to talk, but the full moon was calling to him. He fought back his transformation, something he hadn't struggled with since he was an adolescent. He turned them, crowding Chris against the front door, trying to get into his space. Chris smelled so good. It was the only thing he could concentrate on. It wasn't anything specific, the rational, human part of him knew it was just pheromones, but the _want_ thrumming through him made it impossible to act rationally.

He got down on his knees and quickly got Chris' jeans out of the way, shoving them down to his knees. The scent of musk hit him, and he lost any sense of romance, instead sucking Chris into his mouth without any teasing.

“Derek,” Chris groaned, bringing his hands to clutch Derek's hair.

Derek didn't pause. He kept Chris' hips pinned to the door and sucked and licked and inhaled Chris' scent until Chris was coming down Derek's throat.

Chris reciprocated right after. Derek tried to refuse, but Chris insisted. He dragged Derek to the couch and knelt between Derek's legs. He explored with his tongue and his fingers, licking Derek's balls and as far back behind them as he could reach. Derek slouched down on the couch in offering, and Chris' tongue kept going until he almost reached Derek's hole. Chris' warm breath and wet tongue brought a teasing promise of later. Derek dropped his fangs without him really even noticing, but then Chris retraced his steps, licked his way back up, and then did his damnedest to suck Derek's brain right out through his cock. Derek slipped into wolf form when he came with a growl.

"I'm sorry about the wolf,” he said after. “It almost never happens that I lose my grip on it like that. I don't know what—”

“It's okay, Derek. _Really_.” The emphasis made Derek look up in surprise.

Chris' cheeks darkened, and Derek finally felt like he was closer to a level playing field than he ever thought he would be. Chris had power over him, yes, but Chris was just as affected by Derek.

For the first time in a long time, Derek let himself feel hope.

 

* * * * *

 

For Chris, if he was being brutally honest, it had started seven years before the nogitsune.

He never got over the guilt that followed his first encounter with Derek Hale, an encounter Derek didn't even remember. Even after he confessed it all to Derek under the forgiving cover of night, it still settled into his gut and sometimes left his stomach lurching. But before he could let their relationship—if it was a relationship—get too far, before he could let himself feel too much for Derek, he couldn't let it go unsaid.

It was over a month after their trip to San Francisco. They had been hooking up and not talking about it for three weeks since Derek had showed up at Chris' apartment on the full moon.

Natural born werewolves rarely lost control during the full moon. The anchoring technique was mostly used for those bitten. But their sexual urges sometimes spiked, and it made controlling the change just as difficult as it was for a turned werewolf. Chris could practically feel the sexual energy crackling around Derek when he opened his front door, and when Derek's eyes flashed blue at him for a split second before he got down on his knees, Chris' intention of talking first had gone out the window. An enthusiastic blow job later and Chris was incapable of having the conversation they needed to have anyway.

It happened a few more times after that—more than a few. After one of Derek's regular dinners, Chris said “dessert” a little too suggestively, and it led to Derek throwing him down on the kitchen table and sucking him off in a frenzy. Then there was a hand job in Chris' car when Derek got territorial over the woman at the bank drive-thru flirting with him. Then Derek found out that Peter was trying to convince Malia to do some ritual so he could get back alpha powers. It was clear to Chris that a blow job was obviously the only thing that would calm Derek down before they plotted to stop Peter.

But Chris' guilt finally won out.

He asked Derek if he wanted to go hunting. The normal kind of hunting, well, mostly normal. Derek didn't need to bring any weapons, and they went at night under the cover of the waxing moon. Derek had hunted with his family when he was younger. It was a good chance to let the werewolf side have a little freedom and an outlet. He and Laura used to get far too competitive with each other, and his mom would have to intervene. She was a far better hunter than either of them. In her alpha form, she could creep so quietly through the woods, prey didn't stand a chance.

Chris knew Derek hadn't gone hunting since he came back to Beacon Hills after the fire. Even after he reunited with Cora, they did normal human things together, like go to the movies. Chris thought he understood. Derek longed for a pack. Only Isaac remained of the pack he tried to create, and with even with both of them nagging, they had barely managed to convince Isaac to stay in Beacon Hills and finish out high school.

Chris knew Scott liked to have his pack over to the McCall place all at once for group bonding activities. He also knew Derek was invited but rarely went. Melissa had even gone out of her way to tell Chris to tell Derek that he was invited. But Scott's pack wasn't his pack, even if Scott had been turned by a Hale.

But it was obvious to Chris that a part of Derek was lying dormant as an omega. It was seeing the satisfaction on Derek's face in his beta form after bringing down a deer that Chris realized how much of himself Derek was holding back. He wanted Derek to be able to share all of that with him. He wasn't just falling for Derek the man, but for Derek the werewolf, and the truth started to choke him.

“Derek,” Chris called out.

“Are you okay?” Derek's concern almost made it worse. He could obviously hear Chris' accelerated heart rate.

“I have to tell you something.”

“What is it?”

Chris found a fallen tree to sit down on. Derek took his cue and sat beside him.

And then Chris told him. He told him about the one time he saw Derek with Kate when he came to visit Beacon Hills for Thanksgiving. It was a total accident, but he'd had a bad feeling about it the whole time. That nagging feeling was in his gut when Kate left town right after the fire, but the years went by and there were other monsters to fight. His father kept him busy chasing after monsters, and in hindsight, Chris wondered if it was diversionary on Gerard's part. The man knew Chris would be disgusted by Kate, horrified, would have turned her over to the police in a heartbeat. Chris' conscience was always seen as a weak spot to his father, but it had always been Chris' saving grace.

“Derek, if I had listened to that bad feeling...”

Derek got up and was pacing back and forth in the small clearing, looking everywhere except at Chris. The wounds it opened up, Chris couldn't even imagine. Derek lost nearly his entire family because of Kate's madness. How could Derek ever forgive that? How could Derek ever look at him and not see his sister and what she had done?

Chris spoke again, “My dad was always a hard man. I always thought he was harder on me than he was on Kate. I used to think it was because I was the son—the gay son—but now I think it was just that Kate was more like him. More cold-blooded. I was never capable of it. It just isn't who I am. I'm a hunter, but I'm not a killer, and there's an ocean of difference between the two. I just, I wanted you to know.”

As he watched Derek, Chris' heart started to sink. He thought about the words Derek said when the nogitsune had been controlling him, and how very likely it was that Derek held Kate's crimes against him. He physically braced himself for Derek's rejection. He could take it, the loss, the emptiness. Whatever they had was a spark, and he could put out a spark just as easily as he could kindle it into flame.

He ran through those lies to himself as he waited on the precipice for what felt like an age until Derek finally responded.

“Chris, I—I can't believe I'm saying this, but it's not your fault.” He turned to look Chris straight in the eye. “I truly believe that. Kate would have destroyed my family however she could. I don't think there's anything you could have done to stop her.”

As soon as she found out they were werewolves, they had targets on their backs. Chris followed the code. Kate and Gerard didn't. It was a black and white distinction for Derek, just like following the code was for Chris.

“Derek—” Chris started as he stood up.

“No, wait.” Derek put up his hand. “All the shit Peter has done. I wouldn't want you to hold that against me. I know you. I know who you are unless the man you've shown me the last three years has been a total lie.”

Chris stepped into Derek's space. “Not a lie,” he murmured, before pressing his lips gently against Derek's. Derek responded as he always did, with heat and promise. The weight that had been taken off Chris' shoulders made him feel like a different man, one who could at least _try_ to be worthy of giving Derek back some of the life he had lost. He was about to suggest they take Derek's kill and cut their hunt short.

But then suddenly Derek stopped them, taking a step back. He looked down at the ground, and Chris didn't need werewolf senses to know Derek was nervous.

“As long as we're airing these things. I have one I need to settle with you.”

Chris' mind raced, thinking about what offense Derek committed against him. He almost laughed when he realized Derek was talking about Victoria, not because of what had happened, but because of how revealing it was of his feelings. He already cared more for Derek than he had for the woman he was married to for 18 years.

Derek took another step back. “I would have let her in my pack. You have to know. I didn't—I didn't mean to—”

“Derek, I know,” Chris interrupted. The thought that he was falling in love with the man who had driven his wife to her death was probably ludicrous, one that anyone from outside looking in would probably never understand, but the circumstances of their lives, of Chris' entire life, were harsh. In times of war the rules changed, and back then it had been a war. “It was Victoria's choice. She didn't want to live that way and I respected that choice.”

“What if the situation had been reversed?”

“You mean if it had been me? Would I have joined your pack?”

“Yeah.”

“I wouldn't have gotten myself into that situation in the first place. I've never hated werewolves, Derek. I've never thought it was unnatural or an abomination. I never would have used wolfsbane on a teenager who hadn't _done_  anything but try to protect.”

“You can't tell me you never thought about killing Scott.”

“If I saw Scott as a threat to the people of Beacon Hills, then yes, I would have. I'm not proud of myself for that, not now, but for awhile I thought maybe he would be. I let myself be swayed by the people around me.” He didn't give name to his father, his wife, or his sister. “But Scott was never a _real_ threat. I was slow in getting there, but I would have gotten there. He was a scared teenager who was confused and not in control of his powers.”

“I tried.” Derek whispered, regret heavy in his voice—for Erica, for Boyd, even for Jackson.

Chris never wanted to hear that tone in Derek's voice again, even if it took a lifetime to convince Derek he wasn't to blame for the tragedies that crossed Beacon Hills. He didn't draw the alpha pack. He didn't create the kanima. He didn't summon the oni. “I know you did, Derek.” He pulled Derek to him, wrapping him in a hug. Touch-starved for years, Derek melted into Chris' arms.

The embrace was followed by a long, slow kiss—this one full of promise.

They made love that night in the forest. Chris got Derek on his back in a position of total vulnerability and submission, one that he was surprised to see Derek offer up so willingly. But Derek didn't hesitate for even a split second. Chris was prepared to be on bottom, prepared to convince Derek that he could trust Chris, but then, Derek was never supposed to be an alpha. His independence and his solitude told a story that didn't fit with who he truly was. Deep down he wanted someone else to guide him, even in sex Chris could sense he preferred being taken care of. It was something Chris hoped he would be able to explore.

But that night was about them, together.

They stripped quickly. Derek used their clothes as a makeshift blanket and then laid down and spread his legs. “Is this okay?”

Chris could barely find words as he looked at Derek's naked body, the moonlight skimming over his skin. “It's perfect, Derek. You're perfect.”

When Chris covered Derek's body, when he got him ready, when he pushed inside, it was all like coming home, and he knew everything in his world would be different from that moment on.

Though they feasted on venison for months, they never talked about that conversation again after, about the confessions they shared under the light of the moon. Their slates were clean. The moon had baptized them with a new beginning.

Exactly a year later to the date, Derek gave Chris an anniversary present—hunting gear.

And so that cathartic night of confession, of love-making, became the start of them.

 


End file.
